1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to a method and system for a passive user input attachment that can be used as an auxiliary control device, and more particularly to a passive user input attachment engaging a plurality of compressible conductive elements that can vary an impedance across corresponding electrode nodes.
2. Background Art
“Intelligent” electronic devices are becoming more and more prevalent in today's society. For example, not too long ago mobile telephones were simplistic devices with 12-key keypads that only made telephone calls. Today, “smart” phones, personal digital assistants, and other portable electronic devices are configured not only to make telephone calls, but also to manage address books, maintain calendars, playing music and video, display pictures, and surf the web.
As the capabilities of these electronic devices have become more complex, so too have their user interfaces. Prior keypads having a limited number of keys have given way to sophisticated user input devices such as touch sensitive screens or touch sensitive pads. In touch-sensitive devices, rather than pressing a series of keys, a user makes a series of gestures along the touch sensitive control surface to manipulate and control applications.
At the same time these devices are becoming more powerful, they are also becoming smaller. This puts a constraint on the functionality of many of today's user interface devices. It can seem that there is never enough surface area for the various user interface controls that a designer may desire to employ for users to navigate between applications. Further complicating matters, as user interfaces get smaller, their operation can become more challenging.
There is thus an opportunity for an improved electronic device offering the flexibility of being able to selectively increase the user input interface.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.